


chrysanthemum lungs

by aztronomikal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, and i just wanted to write some angst, i dont know why i wrote this, i was tired and a friend told me to, im sorry, intentional lowercase, its pretty bad tho so theres your warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26925244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aztronomikal/pseuds/aztronomikal
Summary: a hanahaki!au, where a boy is in love with his childhood friend who doesn't feel the same.or, in other words, a tsukiyama fic (but not really)
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Original Character(s), Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	chrysanthemum lungs

**Author's Note:**

> (tw: vomit/emetophobia, flowers/anthophobia, blood/hemophobia, homophobic slurs/general homphobia, swearing, repeating words)
> 
> be safe, and enjoy!

_is that..._ purple _?_

 _kneeling over the toilet, i notice something purple floating in the bowl. what_ is _that?_

_and then it hits me._

* * *

_ding!_

the door of the restaurant dings, notifying me that someone had entered. putting on my usual customer service smile, i turn around only to see...

“tsukki! hi!”

my childhood best friend. tsukishima kei. and the one i’ve been smitten with for god-knows-how-long, because the universe just can’t cut me a break, can it?

“my moon, who’s this?”

a sing-song voice comes from next to tsukki, and only then do i notice. there’s a girl beside him. latched onto his arm. and she's _beautiful_ , with silky black hair tied back in a bun, and eyes as dark as the sea, but with a sort of light in them that even yamaguchi could never achieve. and it’s all i can do not to let my face fall to a grimace. _her moon? what?_

“oh, of course shortcake. yamaguchi, this is akemi haruka. my girlfriend.” there’s a smile on his lips. not just a slight one. no, a smile across his entire face, scrunching his eyes up slightly beneath the frames of his glasses.

girlfriend...? no, that can’t be right. _i love you, i’ve been in love with you for years, kei, please, why can’t you see? tsukki, please. you’re my soulmate, why are you with her, this can’t be real._ i want to scream. but instead, i just say, “tsukki, you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend. hi akemi, i’m yamaguchi.” and i force a smile. the same one i use with customers. tsukki doesn’t even notice my clear discomfort, he’s too busy kissing her cheek, her nose, her _mouth._

i feel bile rise in my throat.

“i’ll... i’ll be right back. excuse me.” and then i run to the employee bathroom, swiping at my quickly dampening cheek with one hand and holding the other over my mouth.

as soon as i get there, my knees hit the ground and i hang my head over the toilet, holding back my own hair.

i expect to pretty much regurgitate everything i’d eaten this morning. but instead, it’s mostly liquids and…

purple.

a single purple flower floats in the bowl. i can still taste it in my mouth, a floral taste, slightly bitter. and by the looks of it…

purple lilac?

i guess that plant identification course i took wasn’t as useless as tsukishima said.

but… why? flowers?

it floats around in the toilet bowl for a moment longer, before i hear a knock on the door of the restroom. “ay, who’s in there? hurry it up!”  
i pick the flower out of the toilet bowl and slip it into my pocket to examine later.

* * *

eventually the two of them – tsukki and _akemi_ – leave, and i do shortly after, somehow keeping myself relatively composed the whole day.

i take the bus home as i usually do, before walking into my small apartment. i live alone – tsukki used to be my roommate, but eventually he moved out because, “we can’t live together forever, yamaguchi.”

sure, we can. i know you actually moved out because everyone thought we were a couple. kuroo told me. why you keep everything from me, i don’t know.  
including the fact that you have a girlfriend, apparently.

i walk to my room and have a seat at my desk, switching on the lamp and pulling the flower from the breast pocket of my shirt. _yep, definitely a purple lilac._

i place it to the side of my desk. am i confused? yes. why the hell did i cough up a flower? no clue. but frankly, i don’t feel like contemplating that at the moment. i have enough on my plate.

* * *

over the next few months, it happens more.

at first, it was just whenever i saw the two of them together. sometimes he would post a photo of them together on his social media, or they would stop into the fast-food restaurant where i work, akemi side-eyeing me the whole time. and then i would cough and a petal or two would fall into my hands, those of various flowers.

today, though. today was different.

tsukishima and i were hanging out at my apartment, and somehow within fifteen minutes, the movie on the television had been abandoned and the topic of conversation had moved to akemi. as it did every time we spent time together.

“isn’t she great? she came to visit me at work yesterday.” _i used to visit you at work every friday._ “she brought me strawberry shortcake and lemonade. she’s such an angel…” _i used to bring you strawberry shortcake. you told me to stop because your coworkers thought we were dating._

“i want to marry her one day, she’d be the perfect wife for me.”

“it’s like her and i are soulmates, you know?”

_“i think i love her.”_

no.

“excuse me tsukki, just a second.” and then i ran to the bathroom.

i could already feel it in my throat. i could barely breathe. all i could hear was my heartbeat, and his words echoing in my mind.

_“i think i love her.”_

_“i think i love her.”_

_“i think i love her.”_

by the time i stood, wiping my mouth, i knew something was different. i went to rinse my hand, when i noticed a smudge of red on it. i looked up into the mirror to see…

my mouth. red seeped out the corners, painted my lips slightly. the taste finally registered, my mouth tasting like old coins and a florist shop.

looking in the toilet, the whole bowl of water was tinted red. and instead of the usual one or two flowers… there was at least ten. all painted with the same shade of red. i couldn’t tell if my shortness of breath was due to panic from the amount of blood, or a side effect of whatever the hell was happening to me, but the next thing i saw was pitch black darkness as i swayed and fell to the floor.

when i awoke, it was to the sound of tsukishima knocking on the door of the restroom. “hey, yamaguchi. you good? haruka asked me to come over, so i’m leaving. we can hang another night, okay?” without waiting for a response, his footsteps padded away, only stopping at the door to put his shoes on before he left, the door slamming behind him.

“bye, tsukki...” i whispered, a tear falling from my face. my voice was slightly raspy. after lying down for a while, i eventually stood up, walking over to the toilet. not wanting to even bother figuring out what flowers they are, i flushed the toilet, before rinsing my mouth and walking out of the bathroom. saltwater tears flowed down my face, but i didn’t even bother wiping them, just walking out onto the balcony of my apartment, staring up at the sky. “hey, moon…” i laughed. talking to the _moon_? what, am i crazy? but i digress.

“please help me. i don’t know what to do. give me my moon back, don’t let her take him... please? just let me have this…” falling to my knees, a choked sob escaped my throat, and i could feel that feeling in my throat again. a feeling that had grown familiar over the past few weeks.

this one was yellow. a yellow hyacinth, to be specific. a single blossom fell into my cupped hands, and the tears started to fall again.

i tore the flower apart slowly, tossing each piece over the rail of the balcony and watching it fall until i could no longer see it, as it swirled in the slightly frosted air towards the ground.

yellow. yellow. yellow. falling.

and that was the day that the sun fell out of the sky, and all i could see was the moon. my moon.

* * *

the moon and the stars were all that was left in the sky. but slowly, the stars fell from the sky, too. yellow. yellow. yellow. falling.

“god, yamaguchi! why do you _hate_ her so much? she’s been nothing but nice to you!”

_nice. right. because whispering “faggot” in passing is just oh so kind. you don’t know her._

“oh, wait. you’re just mad, because now you’re alone again, aren’t you? just like before?”

_… what?_

“excuse me, tsukishima? what was that?” i whisper, but i know he hears me. if i don’t whisper, i’ll scream, and i don’t want to scream. i’m trying not to cry, but i can feel it in my throat again. that feeling. it never leaves nowadays. it’s always there.

“is it because i like her better than you? well, maybe that wouldn’t be the case if you weren’t so fucking _clingy_ , yamaguchi. maybe then _someone_ would love you like i love her.”

that’s it.

“are you fucking stupid, tsukishima? i don’t _want_ someone else! i want you! i’m in love with you, and have been for years, but you’ve got your head so far up your own ass that you don’t even see it! so, you know what? fuck you. marry her then. clearly you don’t need me.”

the feeling rose. the petals tickles at first, and then there is the pain. and i cough. a spot of blood appears on my palm.

“ _you_ love _me_ , yamaguchi? oh, that’s _rich_!”

with another cough, a single yellow petal appears.

“i’m finally happy. and you’re selfish enough to try and ruin that?”

more yellow.

“well listen here. and you better listen good.”

at this point, an entire flower worth of petals. those of yellow carnations.

“i don’t love you.”

more of it.

“and i never will.”

more.

“because i love haruka.”

more.

“and i don’t love men.”

yellow.

“i’m not a _filthy faggot like you_. understand?”

yellow. yellow. yellow. yellow. _yellow_.

“don’t talk to me again, tadashi.”

and then blue. a tiny blue blossom, with a sun yellow center. the color of the sky just as it begins to fade from day to night. it falls atop the pile of yellow, spattered with a sweet maroon.

“ _i’m sorry, tsukishima.”_

_“don’t forget me.”_

* * *

i don’t leave my apartment anymore. my phone is shut off. i know what’s coming, and i won’t try to escape it anymore. at this point, it taunts me. i see the chrysanthemums growing in the neighbors’ garden. i know what the flowers mean.

i know.

my face has gotten thinner. the flowers don’t stop coming. they scratch my throat raw; it hurts to eat. i can’t breathe as easily as i once did. that’s okay.

after that day, tsukishima never contacted me again. i hope he’s happy. with her, or with somebody else. i knew he would never be happy with me; i knew the hope was unrealistic.

but i just wanted to be happy, too. i guess that was too much to ask the moon for. i’m sorry.

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry

it sways back and forth. the yellow chrysanthemum. i had plucked it from the neighbors bush the last time i was outside. it sits in a pot now. swaying, with the wind from the slightly open window.

back and forth. back and forth.

the pot falls. or did i drop it? all i know is the yellow. falling. falling. falling.

* * *

one year, years later in early autumn, a chrysanthemum bush blooms outside tsukishima kei’s house. yellow chrysanthemum, the dew on the petals reflecting the sunlight. tsukishima haruka walks outside and looks at it, before shaking her head.

“kei, we need to remove these bushes! i don’t like the flowers, they’re annoying. they’re everywhere, you know. and so bright, too.”

kei nods. “of course, my shortcake. whatever you say.” he grins.

they’re happy.

tsukishima kei doesn’t think about yamaguchi tadashi anymore.

all kei needs is haruka. his sun.

and all haruka needs is kei. her moon.

they don’t need chrysanthemums. they don’t need yellow.

_they don’t need flowers._

**Author's Note:**

> sorry, this probably wasn't great. i used to write a lot on wattpad but i'm a bit rusty, i suppose.  
> i feel like it moved too fast, and maybe was a little too dramatic? idk, i wrote all of it in one night.  
> but if you're reading this, i hope you enjoyed! have a nice day!


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